Re: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 (fwd)

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@escape.com>]

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Bill Stewart wrote:

> >Eh, what do "virus hackers" have to do with encryption, why is it these 
> >morons justify the destruction of encryption by mentioning hackers and 
> >viruses?
> 
> You're parsing the title wrong.  It's an act to support racketeering
> through opposition to electronic communications.  What viruses have to
> do with encryption is that encryption makes it easier to prevent viruses,
> and Senator Grassley wants to stop that.  And the term "strong" was used in its
> correct engineering meaning, as in "It's a vessel of fertilizer which is
> very strong and promotes growth".

Erm, not quite.  Stealth viruses supposedly use "encryption" to hide 
themselves, but then, I shouldn't mention this, might give El Federale a 
bit more fuel to burn us with.  (But even these beasts can be caught 
easily if you know how... i.e. create a large executable that does 
nothing but quit to the operating system.  Run it every day and compare 
it every day.  The day it changes is the day a virus infected it.)

Still, you could write beneficial viruses, or virus like programs that 
are beneficial in nature in some way. KOH for instance?

However, none of the above has any iota of anything to do with linking 
the four horsemen of LEA's to crypto in any real-life-already-proven 
situation in any significant numbers.  Banning crypto for EVERYONE in 
order to catch maybe, what, two zit-bearing kids hoarding beaver shots 
downloaded from alt.bin.erotica.pix a year is a tremendous loss of 
everyone's privacy.

> Hey, Julf, we've got your number!  And we're making sure nobody's got any
> encryption to prevent fraud with.

Hell, at this point, my guess is that the mafia(s) doesn't use crypto, or 
that if it does, it can be caught via other means.  A strong, well 
developed crypto system in use by the mafia would more than likely never 
happen... not until mobsters get into computers.  Ditto for terrorists.

If they did use crypto, I suspect they wouldn't get caught.  (For the 
paranoid, assuming they used crypto, and they didn't get caught, then the 
FBI or other TLA is doing the same as the gov't in Farenheight 451... 
pick someone else, and jail them.  Otherwise, how do you explain all the 
jailbird mobsters?)

To LEA's out there:  Get a life, get off the net and go bust some 
murderers.  Stop attacking easy targets.  Do your jobs.  Confront the 
real criminals.  What's the matter?  Is it easier to go after crypto 
geeks than it is to arrest drug dealers who shoot back?

=================================================================93=======
 + ^ + |  Ray Arachelian | Amerika: The land of the Freeh. | \-_    _-/  |
  \|/  |sunder@escape.com| Where day by day, yet another   |  \  --  /   |
<--+-->|                 | Constitutional right vanishes.  |6 _\-  -/_  6|
  /|\  |    Just Say     |                                 |----\  /---- | 
 + v + | "No" to the NSA!| Jail the censor, not the author!|     \/      |
=======/---------------------------------------------------------VI------/
      /  I watched and weeped as the Exon bill passed, knowing that yet /
     / another freedom vanished before my eyes.  How soon before we see/
    /a full scale dictatorship in the name of decency? While the rest /
   /of_the_world_fights_FOR_freedom,_our_gov'ment_fights_our_freedom_/